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The Great Space Chase

By: Sathiyan Sivakumaran

Earth is an interesting planet. We have lifeforms of many different shapes and sizes and billions of humans living on land. However, the real phenomenon is this liquid water that covers over 70% of the Earth’s surface. That’s more than the land that we live on, and yet we struggle to find the life-sustaining water on other planets. As technology has improved, NASA has continued its search for water on other planets. Finally, there was a breakthrough: there is water that still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars, our planetary neighbor.

It’s a great time to be talking about space. Although the percent of the federal budget allocated to NASA has decreased over time, people continue to talk about it. With movies like “Interstellar”, “Gravity”, and even more fittingly, “The Martian”, drawing people to the movie theaters, it’s become clear that space is still very much on the minds of humans. We love these movies, because they have the mystery of space woven into the plots that command our attention. Once NASA announced the existence of liquid water on Mars, we welcomed back the mystery of what really exists past the frontier of Earth. Could there be life on Mars?

It’s been nearly a month since the announcement of liquid water on Mars, but the excitement has carried on with a little bit of help from Matt Damon and the science-fiction movie “The Martian”. The hopes for life existing on Mars have skyrocketed and for good reason. Space takes us to a realm that is so deep and unimaginable that these small relations to our existence keep all humans relating to the ever expanding universe that we exist in. Space plays with theory and reality in a way that fascinates human, and hooks on our desire to learn. After the discovery of liquid water on our neighboring planet, we look to the future wondering… What’s next?